


The Battle For New York

by spiderstanspiderstan



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Chitauri invasion, Disaster, Emetophobia, Gen, Gore, Peter has asthma, Science Contest Nonsense, Subways, The Battle of New York, he's also 11, iffy google drive formatting, my murky medical knowlege
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 21:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6824353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderstanspiderstan/pseuds/spiderstanspiderstan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Parker is eleven years old when the Chitauri invasion happens. This is the battle of New York, from the perspective of a kid on the ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Battle For New York

Peter was the only kid in the tour group, and he couldn’t see _anything_.

 

“‘Scuse me…” He wriggled between a pair of college students, his sketchers slipping on the marble lobby floor. The reception counter was sleek and glass and the most incredibly Stark-ish thing he’d ever seen.

 

The receptionist was handing out lanyards to the swarm of undergrads gathered around her, and didn’t notice Peter for a good minute and a half of waiting.  
  
“Hi!” He said, when she finally looked his way. “I’m Peter Parker and, and I’m here for the Innovators Of Tomorrow Essay contest tour.”

  
“Middle and High school tour is on Thursday-”

  
“No, ma’am,” Someone knocked him in the back of the head with a tote bag, apologised. “I’m third runner-up for the sixteen to nineteen category.”

 

The receptionist raised an eyebrow.  
  
“My I.D will be there, I promise!” Peter insisted. “I entered for all the categories and I got an email that said I was judged at my writing level! I _swear_!”

 

After a few seconds of flicking through badges, the receptionist dug out the right one, and handed it over.  
  
“The other minors are over to the left.” She pointed with her thumb. “Stay close to Miss Potts, and _don’t touch anything_.”

 

“Thank you!” Peter grinned, clutching his laminated paper I.D as he began the battle back through the crowd. The stark industries logo was bold across the top, and MINOR was emblazoned on the left edge in bright orange letters. The rest was taken up by his name and two words - _School Student_.

 

And he was keeping it _forever_. And the lanyard, as soon as he figured out how to adjust it to a sane length.

 

“Are you Peter Parker?” The woman asking was recognisable, from thousands of magazine covers. Pepper Potts.  
  
“Yup.” Peter nodded frantically, still wrestling with his lanyard.

 

The other minors were second and fourth runners-up, and the 17-19 winner. _They_ were all seventeen. Peter still had baby teeth. Two, in fact, but not for very long; both of his upper canines were loose. He nudged them with his tongue in between introductions to the other minors.

 

“Hey, Peter,” The first of the three said. “I’m _also_ Peter, but I’m pretty sure I was called that first, so you can be, like, Peter two: Electric boogaloo or something.”

 

Peter-The-Older shook his hand while Peter (two: Electric boogaloo) stared at his close-cut hair. There were patterns shaved into it, sharp designs that wouldn’t have been possible in straight hair.  
  
“Peter the movie two thousand? That’s probably the year he was born.” Suggested one of the others, a girl with a delicately embroidered hijab. “I’m Sammi. Original Peter’s _twin flame_. Hi, Peter the movie two thousand.”

  
He was wearing a Pokemon backpack, which she must have noticed. She’d made air quotes on the words ‘Twin Flame’. Peter didn’t know what the phrase meant, but clearly it was nonsense.

 

“I was born in two thousand one, actually,” Peter said. “But, um, I appreciate it anyway.”

 

“ _Kids_ ,” Pepper said, thumbing through her phone. “The tour starts in five minutes. I need to go through some ground rules with you. Peter- That is, Peter Parker- is the only one of you who has full permissions from a parent, so-”

 

Despite the wall of windows, the room went dark.

 

Pepper pressed a finger to what must have been an earpiece. Her eyes went wide, and she started a sentence. Nobody got a chance to hear what she said.  
  
A chorus of sirens wailed from nearby buildings, and suddenly everyone was crushing towards the exit. Peter’s first instinct was to slam his hands over his ears and frantically try to find an adult who wasn’t panicking as much as he was, because _god._ Everything was going crazy, and -

 

Aunt May.

 

He took out his phone and _tried_ calling her, twice- the call wouldn’t go through. Something was wrong with the signal, it just wouldn’t _work-_

  
Her office was three streets away, and it sounded like every building in a twenty-mile radius was screeching. Whatever was happening was _bad_. _Really_ bad. And he didn’t know if she was okay.

 

Peter ran full-force out of the double doors, joining the stream of people bleeding from the building. He couldn’t _see,_ not through the crowd- he was in a forest of shoulderblades and chests and tall people’s elbows. He scrambled onto an iron bench, stood on tiptoe to get some kind of bearings, and took off.  


He could see the sky. The swarm of silhouettes flitting through the skyscrapers, like hornets. Some kind of vortex swirling in the distance.

 

It was the closest thing he’d ever seen to the apocalypse.

  
The figures- because that was what they were, not-quite-human _figures,_ sailing around on blobs he couldn’t identify- slammed into the top floors of buildings. Glass and concrete rained from the crowded sky. Peter tried to cover his head with his arms, tiny chunks of debri scratching his skin.

 

The air smelled like dust and fire.

 

Peter didn’t even realise he was crying until someone caught him. He hadn’t cried since he was _eight_. A hand snagged the loop on the top of his backpack and yanked him to a stop. He shrugged the straps off and kept moving, tears pouring down his face, from the dust in the air and the anxiety alike.

 

What had he said to Aunt May last? What if his last ever words to her had been ‘Can I have money for a fruit roll-up?’

 

He didn’t make it far, though- maybe halfway to the office block, before his lungs started protesting. Between the dust and the smoke and the sprinting, he was already struggling for air. It was inevitable.

 

Peter didn’t know how long he ran, almost doubled over, before he finally lost his balance. He landed on his hands and knees, hacking in the dust and glass.

 

His inhaler was in his backpack.

 

He dragged his shirt over his mouth and nose to keep out the dust, falling back into a sitting position. He could feel his hands bleeding, warm and wet and aching with shards of glass. He lay back and stared at the sky, trying and failing to force air into his lungs. Breathing was getting steadily harder. If he could just get a little bit of his breath back- he’d fought back attacks before, if he could just get _up_ -

 

Someone slid an arm behind his head, and another behind his bleeding knees. He tried to protest, to push them away, then just tried to breathe.

 

Above them, the candy-blue sky was splitting in half. Darkness was pooling in the gap.

 

No.

 

 _Something_ was blocking the sky. Blotting out the sun, from this angle. Between ragged half-breaths, Peter wondered what it was. It looked almost like a whale, from below. Like the model hanging from the ceiling in a museum.

 

He’d lost his glasses at some point, but if he squinted, he could just about make out a reddish-goldish streak arcing across the sky, after the… leviathan. Iron Man. The Avengers were there.

 

He might just survive the day, if he didn’t suffocate.

 

The person carrying him was arguing with someone else. He was weighing them down, he knew. Seventy-something pounds couldn’t be easy to run with, and he wasn’t doing much to help, being a limp, wheezing ragdoll.

 

He didn’t want to be carried off like that; they were taking him back towards Stark tower. If only they’d gone the other way, or he could tell them to turn around, or _anything_ -

 

“You can’t just pick up random children from the street!” Peter picked the words out of the conversation. The speaker was male, irritated.  


“If you were a random child _having an asthma attack_ as your world crumbled around you, wouldn't you want to be picked up?” The speaker was female. He was being carried by a _girl_.

 

“You lost his glasses, anyway.”

 

The thudding of the woman’s footsteps slowed and the crowd thickened.  
  
“He had _glasses_?” The woman said. “Shit. Kid, I lost your glasses. I’m sorry.”

 

Peter managed a weak thumbs-up. Spots danced in front of his eyes.  


“Emergency medical is that way.” Someone else said. There were breathless thankyous from his rescuers, the jostling of a flight of stairs, and the next thing Peter knew, he was coming back to his senses with a mask over his face. A nebuliser. He hadn’t used one with a facemask since he was _really_ little. It just made everything seem weirder. A prick in his arm; systemic corticosteroids.

 

By the time he could breathe again, he’d worked out where he was. A subway station, like people’d hid in during world wars. Underneath the action.

 

A blonde paramedic was tweezing glass shards out of his knees.  
  
“Hey, Peter.” She said. “You with me?”

 

Peter nodded, wincing as she pulled a shard of glass free.  
  
“It hurts, I know. But it’ll be over soon. And you can have a sticker, if you want.”

 

“I’m _eleven_.” Peter croaked. “That’s _way_ too old for stickers.”

 

The paramedic raised an eyebrow as she irrigated his right knee.

 

“We have Iron Man ones.” She said. “If your 02 sats are back to normal in an hour and a half, you can have a tootsie pop, too.”

 

“This is ageism.” Peter complained.

 

“So no stickers, then?” The paramedic taped a dressing over his knee with space to spare, so he could bend it. She looked tired.

  
“I want to talk to my aunt,” He said. “Her number’s in my phone, which is...in my backpack. Oh no.”

 

Peter felt like he was going to cry again. He really couldn’t cry again, because crying made it hard to breathe. He did a horribly embarrassing hiccup-sob-gasp that made the paramedic glance at his pulse oximeter.

 

“I don’t have my backpack and Aunt May could be _dead_!” he blurted, tears budding in his eyes.

 

How long had it been since he’d told her he loved her?

 

“May? May Parker, as in Parker like on your nametag?” The paramedic asked, as she finished dressing his other knee and moved on to his hands. Peter nodded “We had a May Parker come through here about twenty minutes ago- I think she was looking for you, actually, knew one of our guys…”

 

She turned her head to shout to one of her coworkers.

 

“Adam! Do you know where May Parker went? I’ve got her kid!”  


“She left her number!” Someone, probably Adam, yelled back. “I’ll call her when I have minute!”

 

Peter was reassured, for just a second. Then the ground shook overhead and people spurted from the subway entrance. There was blood, a lot of blood. More casualties in this wave than the first. Everyone was a mess of beige building dust and blood, the fine concrete powder clumping together in the bloodiest places.

 

Peter closed his eyes and tried really really hard to avoid imagining people wounded like that. How many of his friends were nearby? Uncle Ben was the only person he knew who worked outside the city centre.

 

His earliest memory was Aunt May trying to explain why his parents wouldn’t be back.

 

He barely remembered them, now. It had been seven years, since he was four. Did it take seven years to forget someone? Seven years from now, could he go off to college with hardly any memories of Aunt May?

 

Someone was crying, above the hubbub of people. A woman. Her wailing echoed off the station walls, louder every time. Peter opened one eye a crack, and saw Sammi carried past on a stretcher, just in range of his vision.

 

It was like time froze, in the worst way possible.

 

Half her face had been ripped off. That was the only way he could make sense of it- there were bite marks in the exposed muscle. Her skin was only visible at the edges of the wound, shreds of tan in a sea of red. The lidless eye facing him was still moving, blood running around it and soaking into the torn pink fabric of her hijab. Sammi focused on him with her exposed eye, and the muscles around it twitched in what might have been recognition.

 

She was covered in dust. Concrete or ash, he couldn’t tell.

 

The pretty blonde paramedic thrust a thick plastic bag at him, just in time for him to rip off his mask and throw up.

 

“I’m sorry you had to see that.” She said. “The trains are still running. She’ll go to a proper E.R and she’ll be okay. Your Auntie will probably be here soon.”

 

Peter nodded. On a misplaced instinct, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. The paramedic tightened his mask back on.

 

He didn’t want to believe people could get _hurt_ like that. It was like something out of a movie. Just...surreal. Impossible.

 

He knew he’d never forget it. That must have been so, so painful-

 

A train thundered into the station. A handful of people got off, and around half the station got _on_ , Sammi included. A blur of bright clothes stepped of the train and moved across the platform, vanished into the crowd and reappeared after a few seconds, hand in hand with a similarly dressed blur. They both moved closer, until Peter could make out -

 

“Electric Boogaloo!” Peter-the-older waved frantically with one hand. The other was in a sling. “Hey! Remember me?”

 

“Peter!” Peter took a mental note- he could almost talk properly again. Things were taking a turn for the better. He was gonna get that tootsie pop. Peter-the-older wasn’t Aunt May, but he was _someone_ , a face in the crowd if nothing else.

 

“This is my sister, Leia.” The girl next to Peter-the-older waved. Her hands danced in rapid-fire sign language. “She says hi, and also that I have to tell you the _truth_.”

 

“The truth?” Peter asked. His namesake was almost charismatic enough to make him forget that the world was ending. It was nice of him, to try.  


“Peter is my _middle_ name,” Peter-the-older said, sitting cross legged on the ground next to Peter. “If I tell you my first name you have to promise to keep it a secret, because it’s _really_ dumb, okay?”

 

Peter nodded, and tried to mime zipping his lips. His mask got in the way.

 

“Okay,” Said Peter-the-older. “My name is... _Padmé._ ”

 

Peter couldn’t help but giggle.

  
“Like Star Wars?” He asked.  
  
“ _Exactly_ like Star Wars,” Padmé said. “But you can _never tell anyone_.”

  
“I won’t, I promise!” Peter said. “Your parents must have been _really cool_ though. I wish I had a Star Wars name. I’m named after my grandad.”

 

“I wouldn’t say that. My parents are the worst,” Padmé/Peter answered, fishing a sharpie out of his pocket. “Want to sign my cast? And dude, you _have_ to tell me about your essay. You’re what, thirteen? How did you even get _in_ this contest?”

 

Peter took the pen awkwardly between two fingers. His palms were dressed, but too torn up to write properly. He shakily wrote his name on Peter/Padmé’s wrist cast, between the stickers.

 

“I’m eleven! And my essay is about, um, non- lethal weapons tech” He said, grinning. “I got this concept, that traps people instead of injuring them. I didn’t get a chance to prototype, but it’s this… thing where it’s got a layer in the middle that’s water-soluble, and a mesh on the outside that isn’t, and all of it is sticky! So you could glue people down long enough to catch them!”  
  
“That is _inspired_ , kiddo. Are your hands together enough for a fistbump?” Padmé held out a hand, and Peter delicately bumped his knuckles. “Mine’s just about clean energy. _Everyone_ does clean energy these days, man.”

 

They talked for what felt like hours, in the otherworld of the underground. Peter was eventually freed from his nebulizer, and took a pocketful of stickers when nobody was looking. He decided to save the tootsie pop for later. Leia started teaching him to fingerspell. Someone handed out weak tea and shock blankets. With no daylight, time seemed distant, like they’d slipped out of reality.

 

Finally, when the streets above had gone eerily quiet, and everyone had clustered into little groups on the ground, Aunt May arrived.

 

She stepped off the _miraculously_ still running train, and the minute Peter saw her he ran. It was more of a tackle than a hug, but it got the message across. He tried to find words, maybe _you’re okay_ or _thank god_ or anything coherent at all, but what he managed was a stifled sob into her cardigan.

 

“Thank _lord_ ,” Aunt May crushed him into a hug that lifted him off his feet. “You’re okay. You have _no idea_ how worried I was-”

 

“I lost my backpack. Sorry.” He sniffled into the loose knit fabric.

 

Aunt May set him back on his feet, struggling not to laugh. There was dust in her hair, but she seemed fine, otherwise. No bandages, no blood. Better off than everyone else.  


“Don’t worry Petey-Pie, backpacks don’t matter,” She said. She pressed a kiss to his forehead, and he didn’t wipe it off or wiggle away. “We’ll get you a new one. And new glasses. Are these your friends from the Stark Tour?”

 

Peter followed her gaze to Peter-The-Older and Leia.  


“Yeah!” He said, ricocheting between wanting to laugh and wanting to cry. “But...we never did get to go on that tour though.”

 

He glanced back over his shoulder as they left, just in time to see Peter-The-Older bury his face in his hands and start to sob.

 

 


End file.
